


Vir Sulahn'nen

by deathwailart



Series: Eimhir Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Singing, Spoilers, Team Bonding, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eimhir Lavellan shares the songs of her people with her friends who become her family, from silly moments together to songs of mourning and one of victory and for the fallen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vir Sulahn'nen

Roan huffs quietly at her back as Eimhir settles comfortably back against his warm bulk, something comforting in the smell of the red hart and she runs her fingers through his pelt, holding her sewing needle carefully between her lips. The fire crackles away and though she knows that everyone usually prefers to camp with the scouts if they get the chance, she has to admit that she prefers it when it's just a little camp of the party and mounts. The horses are tethered; Roan is no halla but all the same, the hart listen to her better and he always stays, usually close to her much to Blackwall's consternation and everyone else's amusement if he's with her. She takes the needle up again, her eyesight good enough that she doesn't have to squint as she gets to work again, humming quietly under her breath. It's her turn on watch, Solas lost in his dreams having fallen asleep as soon as they'd set up camp and eaten, Varric's snores drifting over and she uses them to set her rhythm as she glances over to make sure she's not about to disturb Cassandra, the lightest sleeper of the party save Eimhir herself.  
  
"Hail to you sorrowful woman, it was our woe that you were in captivity," she sings to herself, tapping her foot against a rock to keep the beat as she mends a seam in her coat, "your fine country in the possession of thieves, while you were sold to the foreigners." She drops the coat, tapping her hand against her thigh with a smile on her face.  Blackwall's one of the few to catch her singing most of the time because she does it down by the stables, usually tending to the mounts because it reminds her of home and family, Cináed who loves the halla and spends so many hours learning how to tend to them properly. Bull catches her too sometimes but that's when she's in the tavern to see him or Krem, or Sera or Cole and then she's humming along to Maryden's ditties. It's different here when she's singing the songs she knows from home that she'd sing at camp when helping or out with the other hunters when patrols were slow and there was nothing to do but let the forests echo with their voices. She gets to the chorus before she even notices Solas has woken and joined her, his voice joining in as they sing hurrah and welcome home. She shouldn't be surprised he knows this song, he could likely tell her the whole story of it because it's so old her clan doesn't know how or why they know it or what it's about exactly but she likes it. It's not quite right without instruments but she abandons her sewing to tap and clap, sharing a smile with Solas but she can feel her cheeks turning pink. There's always something embarrassing about being caught singing and the first time she'd turned to see Blackwall leaning against the wall watching her with a fond smile she'd nodded and run off to go tend to sudden urgent business.  
  
It's one of the only times he's ever seen her flustered because she much prefers when he's the one fumbling for words.  
  
They finish the song together and she grins, clearing her throat as she holds her coat up to check that the stitching is secure enough for her liking, Solas content enough to sit beside her in silence and she wonders what woke him when she knows how much he enjoys dreaming, especially in a new place.  
  
"Did I wake you?" She asks at last, finding the little pincushion (something from Sera, it's different to the ones she had at home, it's all frilly and silky and Orlesian and she loves how ridiculous it looks) to tuck her needle away safely because she has no desire to stab herself in the thigh or the arse with it.  
  
"Perhaps, I was unsure if the song I heard was related to where we are – I'd think that one a bit more suited to the Storm Coast."  
  
"It's always too wet to want to sing there, or it's for slower songs. Sad ones. Ones about drowning and some poor lad or lass pining back on distant shores and I hate those songs." She settles back against Roan's warm body, turning so she's on her side to look at Solas as she lets her fingers sink into the hart's thick fur, petting him softly. "I don't remember enough words for the shanties they sang when I came over here, I just remember how fast they were, how the beat was different."  
  
"Sailors have their work songs same as smiths and soldiers and spinners."  
  
"Do you ever find songs in the Fade?"  
  
"I do, dirges from after battles that still echo, pounding of war drums, lost cries in the night."  
  
"That sounds very sad," she whispers and he smiles that strange smile of his, the one that always seems a little off but perhaps that's how smiles look if you're the sort to wear a jawbone around your neck. "Are there happier songs?"  
  
"There are."  
  
"Do spirits sing?"  
  
"In a way, there's something about the Fade that seems to buzz and hum, though after your trips..."  
  
"Spiders and demons tend to have a way of drowning everything else out." She shudders because it's still not something she likes to dwell on, like someone poured creepy crawlies down the back of her shirt and dunked her in cold water. "I wish I could see it the way you could sometimes, I feel like with this," she lifts her left hand, frowning at the mark that glows until she tugs her sleeve back down over it, "all I see and feel is the bad. Things pouring out of it that only want to kill. Whatever it is Corypheus plans."  
  
"You still dream, do you not da'len? Not just nightmares," Solas asks and she nods and he smiles, petting Roan's nose when the hart nudges at him. "Then you see the good in it. And seeing as I am awake, I think it is time I take my share of keeping watch lest our dwarven storyteller paint me in a less than flattering light regarding such matters."  
  
She laughs until she yawns, tucking her coat next to her as she drifts off and she isn't sure if it's just exhaustion and a dream claiming her or if it's Solas singing in a tone that's mournful yet wistful all at once.  


* * *

  
  
If there's one human thing she can say that she really likes, it's taverns. Or at least the one in Skyhold. She likes how it always seems so warm, not the harsh pale light of the mountains and snow as far as the eye can see, instead there's always the glow of the fire, plenty of nooks and long shadows that can be cast. She spends a lot of time in the tavern truth be told, usually because Bull and the Chargers have so many stories to listen to and she devours them all with wide eyes, laughing at how ridiculous they are. Maryden's music washes over her and she hums it under her breath often enough, tapping her feet but there are tavern songs too, bawdier ones that Sera comes down for and sometimes Varric and Blackwall will be there too but Sera's voice is always loudest. Especially if the song is rude. Bull knows more songs than she expected but it's Krem who confirms that there are absolutely marching songs for the Chargers and she bribes Dalish to learn one of them.  
  
Grim wrote the favourite one and she really doesn't know why she's surprised about that either.  
  
Her favourite part about tavern songs will always be that eventually, if it's the right song, that everyone will join in. Bull will stamp his feet until her chair shakes, tankards, glasses and bottles are hit against the tables and bar, people clap until their hands must hurt and even if they don't know the song, it doesn't always matter because the words will swell and roll, interspersed with laughter and cheers. They don't exactly have an equivalent at home, not her clan at least, they have nonsense songs that get faster and faster every time they're sung and they clap and play instruments but everyone knows the songs, everyone knows what to do. She's getting used to slurring along and laughing when she makes a mistake and ends up a beat behind.  
  
It's been a long week of miserable weather, snow blowing down off the mountains to pile up, ice cold enough to freeze doors and make the walkways dangerous and she'd rather be in the tavern than hiding in her quarters buried under every blanket she can get her hands on. Whatever Bull's dredged out of his personal reserves, spice beneath an almost cloying sweetness has her flushed, Sera too but that might be because they were arguing over who was pinker than the other and it ended up involving an awful lot of cheek pinching until Eimhir misjudged how far she had to reach out and fell out of her seat. She's back in it now, nursing something that might taste a little like piss because it smells like it but she's too drunk to complain, enjoying the company as Sera asks one more time about Qunari women. Maryden stopped playing a while ago – honestly Eimhir has no idea what time it is anymore, the woman could likely be in bed because there aren't closing hours here, something that Krem said was deserving of a toast. The Chargers like toasts. There have been many, _many_ dubious toasts.  
  
"The old man refused me some straw," she sings under her breath when she stops paying attention, bouncing her knee up and down, up and down, "the old man refused me some hay-"  
  
"You what?" Sera asks because apparently that's enough to draw her attention away from snorting over how Tamassran has an ass in it, making a face.  
  
"The old man refused me some straw to put under my thigh," Eimhir finishes with a grin.  
  
"Wait, is this you and Blackwall? Were you bothering horses down in that barn?" Sera continues and when she tries to answer her she starts laughing too hard to continue.  
  
"It's a song," she manages at last, "the words don't matter-"  
  
"Is that some sort of weird elf thing you Dalish get up to? Singing about straw?"  
  
She covers Sera's mouth with her hand which is a mistake because Sera has the same reaction to that as Eimhir and she shrieks and wipes a sudden slobbery palm on the other woman's breeches. " _No_ ," she shakes her head, dragging the word out, "it's for dancing, rhythm matters, not the words, you sing it faster and faster and faster and-"  
  
In the end she's probably lucky she doesn't lose an eye because it's a very easy song to learn what with almost all of it being about not getting straw or hay from an old man, the very last two lines a descriptor of said old man so soon enough they're shoving tables out of the way to give themselves a decent bit of room as they dance. Well it's meant to be dancing. It's more linking elbows and spinning violently to the beat and Eimhir is very drunk and very dizzy and she stumbles and the Chargers are all very enthusiastic.  
  
She wakes up the next morning by banging her head off the underside of a table but it was worth it even if Maryden sniffs and offers to give her some lessons on proper songs and the art of being a bard if she wants to hold an impromptu song and dance night in the tavern.  


* * *

  
  
"Clap clap, right left right, clap," she instructs and why she's doing this she has absolutely no idea but it seemed like a good one when she started.  
  
"Clap clap, right left right, clap," Cole repeats but slower than her, repeating the actions carefully as the others look on with a grin, Sera, Bull and Varric already helpfully repeating the movements as Blackwall watches over the top of his pint.  
  
"Lift the cup a bit," she raises her own the right amount, Cole following, "and then you slide it to the right about six inches-"  
  
"Six inches-"  
  
"The distance doesn't need to be exact, you just need to move it a bit to the right yeah? Cup down, clap, turn your right hand upside down, lift the cup and you tap it against your left hand." She waits again, listening as the others playing along get up to speed with things, Cole smiling as he follows the steps just as she said.  
  
"I like this," he announces and both Varric and Bull's grins can only be described as the looks of proud parents and even though Dorian rolls his eyes and drums his fingers on the table, she catches the fond look and hides her own smile.  
  
"Right? This'll be genius," Sera comments and Eimhir can only hope.  
  
"So after that bit you put the cup down – but keep hold of it – the right way up like you would if you were drinking out of it. Lift it again, tap it on your left hand again then hold the bottom of the cup with the left hand. Slap the table with your right hand- Fuck!"  
  
"Sorry," Bull mutters sheepishly when suddenly the table shakes and groans in protest, Sera letting out one of her snorty giggles when it makes Blackwall choke on his beer.  
  
"Right so after you've slapped the table – gently, the table hasn't insulted your Chargers or said it likes to be smacked-" It's Dorian's turn to choke this time, the sound almost drowned out by Bull's laughter.  
  
"Why would the-" Cole begins only for Varric to shake his head and tell him to ask another day.  
  
"Cross your left arm over your right, put the cup upside down on the table. And repeat."  
  
She has no idea how long they all sit after that, getting the timing right but it sounds incredible and it's possibly the best idea she's had in a while, even Sera who seemed sceptical at first is grinning brightly now.  
  
"Remind me why we're doing this again?" Varric asks over the clapping and tapping.  
  
"When we kick Coryphy-shit so hard in the plums that they go right up inside him," Sera replies with great relish, clapping one of her hands to Eimhir's, "this is our victory song."  
  
"Really?" Dorian asks, eyebrow raised.  
  
"It's an old elven tradition," Eimhir says seriously, thickening her accent and wiggling her fingers as she taps her cup to her left palm. "I'm sure Dalish and Solas'd vouch for me."  
  
"I'd vouch for you, this seems daft enough."  
  
"I'd like to do this when we win," Cole says softly, barely audible over the noise they're making and when Eimhir sinks down enough in her seat so she can actually see beneath the wide brim of that hat, his smile has reached his eyes. "Words that mean nothing, rain for a week, aravels sinking in the stinking mud, Keeper won't stop frowning. But she smiles at the cups, thinks no one can see but you saw, elbow in the ribs and look at Deshanna, she tried to walk off and fell on her backside."  
  
"Not even someone as great as Keeper Deshanna is safe from the treacherous mud," Eimhir says with mock sadness, shaking her head.  
  
They stop eventually, once she's sure everyone has the right rhythm although she is absolutely going to hide somewhere with Sera to see how long it takes to repeat that and drive people mad with it, Sera returning to her cosy corner, Bull and Dorian heading off together. She tells Blackwall she'll find him later, he and Varric are going to talk about jousting and she is _not_ getting roped into that sort of discussion because as much as she loves him, she will never care about jousting and tourneys. She's never seen a man pout so pathetically as he did when she said it sounded very silly, grown men and women prancing around to smack one another with sticks. Instead she heads upstairs to sit with Cole, their legs poking through the railings.  
  
"Thank you," he says, tapping his hands to the beat they used at the table. "You always include me."  
  
"You're my friend," she tells him, tapping away in time with him. "You're family."  
  
"Family," he echoes, as if testing the word before he stops and tugs the brim of his hat down to hide his red cheeks.  


* * *

  
  
She's never spent much time alone with Vivienne, never sure where she stands with a woman who could not be more different to her if she tried. She feels like a silly girl playing at being a grown up and yet for all the disagreements they have had, there's a respect for Vivienne she cannot deny and she's given her advice when she has needed it. She was there after the revelation about Blackwall, admitting that she didn't understand the appeal but that she should keep her chin up, that the man obviously worshiped the ground she walked on and that something like that didn't happen every day. Still, she doesn't know what she should say when faced with Vivienne's grief. Grief among her clan is either quiet acceptance, and Creators know she's seen enough of that since she fell out of the Fade, or it is loud and noisy, an undignified display of tears and howling out the pain as someone embraces you and murmurs in your ear. Eimhir might have somehow charmed the court at the Winter Palace but this is very different and everything she wants to say feels so heavy in her mouth, clumsy before she even gets a single word out and while Vivienne might prefer her silence, she doesn't want the other woman to think of her as uncaring.  
  
It's a long quiet journey back to Skyhold but for Vivienne's sleek silver horse and Roan, hooves and snorts, the odd clicking of a tongue or the flicking of reins.  
  
So she hums, something everyone is accustomed to by now because the others have started to hum the same songs she does, or they clap out beats, tapping their toes and sometimes at camps or around Skyhold someone will hesitantly but hopefully call out 'inquisitor' and ask her about what the song means and if they heard a line correctly. It's strange to hear shemlen and dwarves asking about her songs but she always takes the time to tell them and when she hears them drifting up to her as she runs around or fills a requisition, she closes her eyes and it feels like home, some of the last nagging loss in her heart easing. This is what her Keeper wanted, she thinks, after all she knew that the conclave would shape the future of the Dalish and maybe Eimhir can do some shaping herself, even if it's just a song.  
  
Vivienne glances over, her face so blank that it has to be practiced and well, Eimhir's learned to do that herself these days, when she's been scared and hasn't wanted to show it because it's all well and good that people know that she is indeed a person but she's meant to inspire. She has to look brave even when she sometimes can't look at her hand for the revulsion that stirs in her.  
  
"Age will chase away the beauty of your countenance," she sings under her breath, not quite daring to be so loud as usual because she has no idea how this song will be received, "and will turn each curl of your hair to grey. But oh, my love for you will not fade or grow cold. It will, my darling, grow deeper with each year." She pats Roan, closing her eyes for a moment because as much as she has seen of death, to be taken to such an intimate moment and with it so fresh in her mind, she needs a moment. She cannot imagine how Vivienne feels because the woman simply nods at her once her song is done and Eimhir hums instead until she falls silent as they reach an inn Vivienne has deemed suitable.  
  
The silence is comfortable though, what little conversation there is to check plans and routes, Vivienne taking a chance to point things out to her that they wouldn't get to otherwise because usually things are so hectic and there's a whole group of them. When they run into trouble they take it down with ease and sometimes Eimhir pauses to watch how Vivienne moves, the shimmer of barriers, the ease with which she takes things down when Eimhir is not spinning and leaping with her blades. Her hand is very soft when she rolls her eyes and applies a stinging poultice to Eimhir's cheek when a demon catches her and she smells of perfumes even on the road and something that she can only describe as lingering magic. But she hushes Eimhir when she hisses as the poultice gets to work, smoothing her hair out of the way and they share a smile as they mount up again.  
  
It isn't until much later, after the introductions to family and her offer to help with arrangements has been carefully rebuffed that Vivienne asks the name of the song and Eimhir tells her, smiling gently as she does so. She turns away when she hears Vivienne's breath catch in her throat but offers to sing the whole thing this time, uncaring if everyone in the hall can hear.  


* * *

  
  
In the end, they forget the song she taught them at the tavern, so swept up in the rush of victory but Eimhir thinks it can be forgiven. She misses Solas and she has no idea where she is but she's not going to send scouts out yet, not right now, not when they should all be singing and dancing together. There are too many people who want to meet her but tonight is for her friends. She stops to talk to all of them, hugs them all too because she can and Bull lifts her up to swing her around, she grabs Blackwall by his coat to kiss him and she hugs Dorian twice because she can't have a serving girl beat her in hugging her friends. In the end she lounges against a wall by Cassandra because it started with them and they clink glasses with a smile. She's going to miss her when she has to leave but if Cassandra is true to her word, she's going to be a good Divine.  
  
Not that she can imagine her in the robes a Divine wears, perhaps Cassandra can be the first one to wear ceremonial or dress armour and the thought makes her laugh. She tells Cassandra when she asks and Cassandra laughs too and asks if she'd have her support for such a measure and Eimhir rolls her eyes because of course, Cassandra looks her very best in her armour.  
  
Cassandra puts an arm around her shoulder and Eimhir slips one around her waist, both of them sighing together because it's finally over. The day is saved – there's so much rebuilding to be done that Eimhir can't let herself think about it or she'll run screaming into the mouth of the nearest dragon – and they've been there from the very start when Cassandra thought she had killed the Divine to now. Eimhir loves Blackwall with all her heart but a part of her is always going to be at least a little bit in love with Cassandra too, all the times Cassandra has trusted her even when Eimhir has made decisions she would not approve of, the times Cassandra has defended her and stood up for her and staked her faith on the line for her.  
  
"I'm so glad I met you," she says at last, tipping her head back so she can look up at the other woman who smiles like the sun.  
  
"And I you. You are a true friend. I am so very proud to have fought alongside you."  
  
"I don't think I could have done this without you." She holds up a hand when Cassandra starts to interrupt her. "You were there from the start, you let me have a weapon, you picked me up when the Anchor made me fall, you defended me and you defied everything so we would even have a chance at this. I don't believe in your Maker but someone watched over me if they brought you into my life." And even though it hurts to speak of Mythal, to even _think_ of Mythal and the Well and all that has happened, she still smiles and lets Cassandra pull her a little close. "Perhaps Mythal sent you into my life and the Maker brought me into yours."  
  
"I like the thought of that," Cassandra says quietly and Eimhir bites her lip and they clink glasses again. "You should make a toast or give a speech."  
  
"I'm not good at those, this is the sort people will remember, I can't just pull it out of my arse this time and blame it on the heat of the moment."  
  
"Then perhaps a song."  
  
There's a lump in her throat but she smiles and nods because a song, she can manage a song. Someone appears to take her glass as Cassandra gives her a little push forward and all eyes are on her, awaiting what she might say or do.  
  
It's such an old song that she sings when she clears her throat and opens and closes her mouth a dozen times, swallowing tightly. The start is easy, following a road, weariness – it's a song sung to remind them all of the long walk that the elves had to make but it describes this journey well enough too and when her voice falters at the part about toasting to lost friends, other voices swell and soon the halls of Skyhold echo with it when her own fails her entirely, so tight she cannot breathe.  
  
But her friends are there, singing louder than the rest with smiles on their faces and perhaps one day Solas will come here when they inevitably drift away like the Warden and Hawke and their companions did and he'll feel the echo of it and join in. Cassandra's hand is at her back the way it was when she stumbled in Haven and she can't think of a better Divine right now.  
  
"Go," she says when she's refilled their glasses for a real toast to the fallen, "I think you've earned a reprieve."  
  
She can see Blackwall watching her intently and she smiles, hugging Cassandra tight as she moves as if to try some of the food on offer before backing away and towards the door to her quarters and then Blackwall is there, bowing as if she's a proper lady and she smiles, leading him up the stairs with a spring in her step. She teases him because she can, because they've won and they're both alive. The sky is bright when she steps out onto the balcony, leaning against him and she can at least greet the dawn with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs referenced/sung:  
> Óró, sé do bheatha abhaile – Welcome Home (modern version)  
> Dhiùlt am bodach fodar dhomh – The Old Man Refused Me Some Straw  
> The cup song (I've got the Gaelic version)  
> An Ribhinn Bhòidheach – Beautiful Maiden  
> Wander My Friends (I will never be over That Scene from BSG)


End file.
